Man Hopping

[MysterionMuffles]

I have a friend (who might not be my friend any longer) who likes to man hop. And by that I mean she will get into a relationship with a man, but at the first sign of distress, she seeks out back up boyfriends she can fallback on shortly after breaking up with the previous guy. She has done this for the past seven years now with five different guys. I...just feel horribly sad for her inability to stay single and be happy. What are your thoughts on this kind of behaviour?

[Jay Paul]

In my personal perspective the type of woman you describe your friend to be based on the behaviors and tendencies she has I'd say she is emotionally insecure, manipulative, and may very well be a narcissist. I say she is emotionally insecure, because she flees from any new relationship as soon as something doesn't turn out as she expects it. She has unrealistic expectations for her new relationships and when there's a speed bump, or whomever she's with at the time isn't exactly the person she imagined him to be, and instead of discussing with her new partner whatever anxiety she's experiencing she retreats to another guy she is already familiar with. This 'fall-back-guy' is someone who she has more realistic expectations of based on whatever history they share, and she no longer has to submit herself to the dynamics of a new relationship. She's manipulative in that she keeps these fall-back-guys around, who themselves also have low self-esteem, so she can have a nice comfy, familiar place to fall when her newer relationships don't pan out. It would appear that she continues communication with these 'fall-back-guys' for this precise reason. She uses these fall-back-guys own insecurity and inability to move on after their initial relationship failed to have someone to make her still feel valuable after she fails to see the lack of value in herself and whoever's unfortunate enough to go out with her. To me this spells narcissist, because she would appear to have an unrealized lack of self esteem and a lack of empathy for her new boyfriends, her old boyfriends she continues to go back to, as well as herself for continuing to subjugate herself to these unhealthy relationships. But these are all just my thoughts based on what you said in an even shorter paragraph. I very well may be completely wrong. I don't know your friend at all. I'd say you already know everything you need to know about her, and what the best course of action for you to take for either the continuation or termination of your friendship with her. I do understand that it can be very difficult judging the dynamics of a friendship and understanding someones personality when your so close to it. It's like looking at a mural through a microscope. If you don't feel comfortable making any permanent decision immediately I'd talk to your friend about how this has all been troubling you, and depending on how that conversation goes take some time away from this friend, take a few steps back from the relationship, put everything into focus, and I'm sure then you'll know precisely what to do.

[Wesley]

Have you talked with your friend about your concerns and asked her why she feels she needs to do this? It seems a bit odd to have a friendship where you feel like you couldn't at least ask what is going on for them.

[PatrickC]

This behaviour amongst some young women is not altogether uncommon. Some men can take on a similar trait in their 30's as well. Setting aside the obvious psychological unmet needs that are at the root core to this, for which my thoughts would be speculative at best. She is in her maternal prime (assuming she's in her 20's). So to a large extent she is using her value to seek out the best outcome for herself (mate wise).

 

This particular method of capitalising on their value is positively encouraged within our culture, both within European and north American cultures. I couldn't count how many early 20's women I met that were quite clear about never getting married, many of which said they never wanted children either. Often these women came from fairly stable family backgrounds where the parents were still married even. Moving onto the next man is often seen (or described even) as a form of female empowerment. So often the unhealthy aspects to this kind of behaviour is left unspoken and so by proxy is encouraged further.

 

I definitely have some sympathy for these women now that I'm older. The panic that can set in around their 30's is quite palpable for many women, when they realise that actually marriage and children are very worthwhile goals towards personal and future happiness. The BS and experiences they learnt in their younger days is relatively small change compared to the rest of their lives.

 

Having said all that, sadly it's clearly a behaviour that is exacerbated by history and trauma. Not an easy conversation to have if you were planning to have one with her.

[Stefan Molyneux]

Personally, I would sit down and ask her about her relationship with her father.

[MysterionMuffles]

Personally, I would sit down and ask her about her relationship with her father.

I thought that may have something to do with it, but I never considered actually talking to her about that so thanks.And yeah I have talked to her about this once but she seemed to have swept it under the rug. I asked if she was aware of the cycle and how she felt about it, she said she was disgusted with herself. But then she went on to justify how bad her current relationship is based on very aesthetic differences. A week later she broke up with her bf and told she wanted to focus on herself now I felt she only said that to appeal to my own narccissism by saying what I wanna hear based on my philosophical rambles about self worth that clearly do nothing for her. How I know this is because she didnt take my advice in telling the back up boyfriend that she needs to sort herself out first and promise they can date later in the future. Instead she got caught up in seeing him so soon, hanging out with his kid who was the result of female on male rape, having to deal with the psychotic baby mama.Yikes! Right? This new guy has a really tragic history that he had no problem in sharing tooo early on. Its nice like "nice to meet you? I witnessed sibling on half sibling molestation, reported it and somehow got in trouble for doing so." Anyways these are just baseless semantics but she basically seems to go for very broken guys. Judging from when her relationship was going well and her and I justnhung out as buds, I could honestly say that...she CAN do better. She seems very bright and creative on some levels, but immensly stupid in terms of romantic choices.

[Dave Bockman]

I have a friend (who might not be my friend any longer) who likes to man hop. And by that I mean she will get into a relationship with a man, but at the first sign of distress, she seeks out back up boyfriends she can fallback on shortly after breaking up with the previous guy. She has done this for the past seven years now with five different guys. I...just feel horribly sad for her inability to stay single and be happy. What are your thoughts on this kind of behaviour?

 

When you write 'distress' what are some examples if you can recall?

[MysterionMuffles]

From our text chat before we met up, she was complaining about aesthetic preferences. She likes the Big Bang Theory, he likes Family Guy,. She loves out doors, he is afraid of bugs. She wants to cuddle after sex but he cant do that without tv on. When I asked her why she even hooked up with him in the first place she said he turned her on. Instant facepalm for that being the basis for a two year relationship. When we met up she went on about how he woulf reject her help and when she needed it he would ignore her.

 

Being the white knight I am just said if he was virtuous and really loved you he would be curious why you felt a certain way. But I have a feeling she actively seeks out men who clearly dont care about her as much as I did platonically. Note the past tense.

[MrCapitalism]

Do you have any interest in dating her (assuming you are male/swing that way)?

[MysterionMuffles]

I thought I did, but her lack of virtue makes it impossible for me to be genuinely interested in her beyond my hero complex. Ive processed this as a past version of myself who may have pursued this as such outbof desperation. And of course its amongst other personal things my brother helped me process when it came to our own mothers inconsistency between words and actions. I dont think I need to get into that any further especially here.

 

Why this concerns me still is because I really do want to dump this woman as a friend but not through a declining lack of contact. I want her to understand that I dont take our time together for granted and why it must end in the vain hope it gives her some pause whrn it comes to treating men the way she has.

[MrCapitalism]

Total sympathy for the position you're in dude, here's my observation as a 3rd party on the internet.You're going to try and have a deep heart to heart about how she treats people....meanwhile she's dumping dudes based on TV shows and whether they like bugs or not.You want her to realize that she treats men badly, yet she can get guys to wait in a queue for her affection....not even into a relationship, but to wait until she becomes single.

 

That plan sounds crazy. What are your thoughts on why you want to do this?

[MysterionMuffles]

If I can stay calm and refrain from lecturing...I want to be curious and understand just what the hell shes thinking. And to see if my friendship even meant anything to her as I was the first guy friend to have never shown romantic interest in her.

[Jay Paul]

I can empathize with you wanting to help a friend who's a girl understand her own manipulative, shallow tendencies, and help her improve herself, but based on my own experience it's a pretty futile effort. This person has to want to help herself. I would think if she legitimately want to change when you had expressed your concern to her previously she would have responded in a remorseful and curious way with an expressed desire to improve. After you'd bring these dating habits to the attention of your friendship with her she'd likely break down and cry, "I know, I know. This isn't good. I don't like doing this, but I don't know what to do." But this isn't even close to what happened. She told you she was aware of what she was doing and it didn't make her feel good, and then she ran away from the subject. She obviously lacks curiosity for her own behaviors and motifs. That's not something you can create for somebody. You can just bring it to their attention, and see what they do with it. I don't know the dynamics of your relationship to this woman outside what you've shared with us, and what amature interpretations I can make, so I won't even attempt to tell you what you should or shouldn't do. I just wish you luck in your decision making on this matter.

[MysterionMuffles]

My hope is that my genuine curiousity can open a gleam of introspection in her, if not a complete overhaul of her values. I get that it's not my job to be changing other people, but this is also something I need to do for myself. I want to develop self assertiveness by being able to tell someone that I do not enjoy being treated as their shoulder to lean on that gets not a single thing back. It is selfish of me I know, and I usually don't ask for anything back--because most of my friendships these days have implicit agreements to give back what you get. However, with her, there is no value she has returned to me as of yet. It's been take take take.

 

She has known that I've had an interest in one of her friends for a long time, and instead of giving her friend even the littelest nudge towards me, she goes on about her own problems and even goes on about how I would not be attracted to her friend in the long run. Whether that's true or not, I find that pretty unfair of her to do. Like I didn't expect her to ever hook me up with a date with her friend, but at least a "hey, I've been hanging out with Marlon lately and he seems to mention you sometimes. How do you feel about him? Personally I think he's pretty cool..." You know, just to give her a friend at least some incentive to come hang out with both of us casually. I have no other way of contacting her friend, but it's no big deal.

 

Anyways I'm getting too much into useless semantics. Basically, I've given her philosophical insight on how unworthy her last boyfriend was due to not caring about her emotions, and how much he rejects her help and attempt to understand him. I've even given her personal insight on how hard it was for me to become an Atheist and come out with it to my mom (lol as Stef says, Atheist is the new gay), because this friend of mine...she has grown skeptical of Catholicism. I can see how much she is suffering as she sits on the fence about her faith. Personally I would respect her if she just committed to either being religious or Atheist. I'm highly aware that I'm setting expectations of her to be worthy of my friend, and I know that's unethical, so that's even more reason to why I need to let her go.

 

But I can't let her go without knowing if my friendship ever meant anything to her. I've spent too much time with her this year to simply stop contacting her. I want to let her know that I've been hurt and that there is context to my future ignorance of her. So thanks for all your support guys, I really appreciate it. You have all helped me to see it through many different angles that I did not consider before. I was going to be stupid and judgmental towards her, but you helped me become more curious than in the business of one-up-manship.

[LovePrevails]

I have a friend (who might not be my friend any longer) who likes to man hop. And by that I mean she will get into a relationship with a man, but at the first sign of distress, she seeks out back up boyfriends she can fallback on shortly after breaking up with the previous guy. She has done this for the past seven years now with five different guys. I...just feel horribly sad for her inability to stay single and be happy. What are your thoughts on this kind of behaviour?

 

Scared to express her preferencesscared to get hurt

doesn't know what she wants

 

 

I recommend getting her some books on communicating - if she is open minded to them

How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk

Nonviolent Communication

Satisfactions by Pete Gerlach (although it's long)

 

are some suggestions

[MysterionMuffles]

Those sound like good books Id like to read myself. A couple of them by Nathaniel Branden? I would suggest them since shes a reader but I dont know if theyd even have any effect on her. Its worth a shot. Its funny though as willing as I was to go through with this dumping process...Im feeling ambivelant if I should just break contact with her from this point on without much a whimper.

[LovePrevails]

why don't you usse curiosity as a tool to learn from her? if she opens up to you I'm sure what you learn will be great for understanding people in general

 

I love when people open up to me and I can just empathise I learn something valuable every time

[MysterionMuffles]

why don't you usse curiosity as a tool to learn from her? if she opens up to you I'm sure what you learn will be great for understanding people in general I love when people open up to me and I can just empathise I learn something valuable every time

Yeah thats the route I want to go now. I did downright defriend her a few years ago for the same reasons, but this year I actually bonded with her and it would be quite douchey of me to just ditch her. Or worse continue judging her actions until she naturally gets fed up with it, or I tire of her submissive agreements to those judgements.Either way Ive let go of my desire to change her because I find that to be abusive, instead I want to just understand her better. I clearly have no interest in her romantically, so its about time I stop acting like a jealous ex or bestfriend in the way that is all too familiar to love triangles. My gut told me not to tell her I like her after she broke up with the previous guy, because I would just be enabling her dysfunction--and it was right.Shes just horribly misunderstood, and based on a phone call I had with her earlier this weekend, Im starting to see why she enjoys power over the hearts of men. The damn narciccistic parents man...I wont detail any further. Thanks again everyone. Your input has helped me guage the value of empathy and loyalty

[TDB]

I recommend getting her some books on communicating - if she is open minded to them

How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk

Nonviolent Communication

Satisfactions by Pete Gerlach (although it's long)

Parent Effectiveness Training by Gordon was along the same lines as How to Talk so Kids, but it seemed clearer and more concrete to me. I may have just been in the wrong mood when I read How to Talk.